IBM is at it again. That is being innovative, and taking those innovations to the airwaves. IBM and America’s Favorite Quiz show® Jeopardy! today announced that an IBM computing system named “Watson” will compete on Jeopardy! against the show’s two most successful and celebrated contestants -- Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. The first-ever man vs. machine Jeopardy! competitionwill air on February 14, 15 and 16, 2011, with two matches being played over three consecutive days. "Watson" is a Natural Language Processing, Question Answer machine, named after IBM company founder Thomas J. Watson, Sr., to challenge two of the
world’s trivia grand masters, to be aired on U.S. television from February 14-16, 2011.

So what can Watson do? Watson will enable people to rapidly find specific answers to complex
questions. The technology could be applied in areas such as healthcare,
for accurately diagnosing patients, to improve online self-service help
desks, to provide tourists and citizens with specific information
regarding cities, prompt customer support via phone, and much more. Watson harnesses IBM’s commercial POWER7 system, showcasing how IBM workload-optimized systems provide unmatched
capabilities for processing thousands of simultaneous tasks at rapid
speeds, once the realm of only scientific supercomputers. According to IBM Blogger Elizabeth Stahl, "IBM workload-optimized systems provide unmatched capabilities for
processing thousands of simultaneous tasks at rapid speeds. IBM systems
can handle the massive analytics incredibly fast -- and that's what's
needed to analyze complex language and deliver correct responses to
natural language clues. Watson sifts through vast amounts of data and
returns precise answers, ranking its confidence in its answers."

Today at the Gartner Data Center show in Las Vegas, IBM announced that powerful new predictive analytical capabilities,
constructed using intellectual property from 21 inventions, have been
incorporated into its global technology services portfolio – including
information technology and strategic outsourcing services. IBM VP Steve Sams, vice president, IBM Site and Facilities Services, hinted at this news yesterday in his luncheon address to over 650 conference attendees.

This is the
latest example of IBM using analytics capabilities to transform the
nature of high-value business and technology services, which includes
everything from identifying fraud in tax or healthcare systems, to
predicting consumer buying behaviors for retail clients.

Predictive analytics capabilities have been pioneered by IBM
Research to enable chief information officers (CIOs) to construct
specific, fact-based financial and business models for their information
technology (IT) operations. Traditionally, CIOs have had to make
decisions about their IT operations without the benefit of tools that
could help interpret and model data. Now, planning future investments
for data center capacity or adopting emerging technologies such as cloud
computing can be more predictable, resulting in savings of up to 40
percent of technology infrastructure expenses through balancing IT
capacity with business growth.

"Until now, CIOs have been unable to access many of the predictive,
analytics-driven tools that CEO's or CFO's have used for years," said
Steven Sams, vice president, IBM Site and Facilities Services. "With
today's announcement, CIO's are able to not only apply relevant facts to
optimize current IT investments, but also access business insights
needed to make the best use of limited resources. In essence this broad
array of new analytical capabilities take data generated from IT
operations and turn it into a set of facts that clients can then use to
make smarter business decisions," he added.

New analytical capabilities are available now across IBM Global
Technology Services. Examples of capabilities that help clients with
data center rationalization include:

IBM's Alternate Cash Flow Analysis can help determine which
alternatives in data center or IT infrastructure operations can
cost-effectively meet a client's business goals. Consolidate or upgrade?
Two data centers or one? Short-term benefit or long-term approach?
This analysis calculates the "do-nothing strategy" – for example, what
would happen to investments if left in their current state – which
provides a baseline for other financial comparisons.

IBM's Physical Threshold Capacity Analysis can help forecast data
center capacity requirements many years into the future, allowing
clients to know how long their data centers will remain viable and when
they will need to be upgraded. A patent-pending algorithm developed by
IBM Research empowers decision-making and improved business performance
through the use of computational algorithms and modeling to determine
how to meet unpredictable demand in data center capacity. Based on
client's input on expected application growth, IT strategy and current
data center capabilities, the tool provides objective analysis on the
data center capacity thresholds to predict energy and space capacity
requirements.

IBM's Resiliency Rationalization Analysis can help clients correctly
gauge resiliency within their data center infrastructure. Current
metrics for understanding reliability typically focus on the capital
costs and don't facilitate the business decision of understanding the
value of availability to the on-going business operations. Using client
input on relative application values, recovery times, operational
quality and other data can provide visibility into the trade-offs
between the values of availability with the costs of reducing risk
exposure.

Adopting IBM's predictive analytical capabilities to analyze
cash-flow, threshold capacity and resiliency rationalization can help
CIOs and business leaders better plan, manage and deploy IT
infrastructure and budget effectively.

IBM continues to expand its multi-billion dollar investment in the
business analytics and optimization market. Over the past five years,
IBM has invested more than $14 billion in 24 analytics acquisitions.
Today, more than 8,000 IBM business consultants are dedicated to
analytics and over 200 mathematicians are developing breakthrough
algorithms inside IBM Research.

IBM is showing customers and analysts their "Blueprint for a Smarter Data Center" today at the Gartner Group Conference. Steve Sams, IBM Vice President of IBM Site and Facilities Services spoke today to a standing room only crowd at the conference about best practices for developing cost-effective and efficient data centers that can support business growth. According to Steve, "60 percent of Data Center savings come from smart mechanical and electrical savings." He reminded the crowd to plan for efficiency in the "design phase of a project." He also recommended the use of "server virtualization analytics" in planning for an optimized, productive data center.

If you're interested in learning more, stop by IBM Booth Z at the Gartner Data Center Conference. IBM is showing their Portable Mobile Data Center for attendees, and you'll have the opportunity to ask IBM Experts at the show your questions about how to increase the efficiency of your data center, and optimitize your hardware for greater savings. Make sure to stop by, your session with an IBM Expert is complimentary. Take a tour of the IBM Portable Modular Data Center; a turnkey data center built for any environment for remote, temporary, mobile and raised floor expansion solutions.

We're gearing up for our presence at the Gartner Data Center Conference next week with exhibits and all our IBM experts. IBM has some great speaking sessions offered at the conference that attendees will want to take advantage of. Take a look at the schedule of our sessions, and save the dates on your calendar. If you're attending the show next week, remember you can use the Gartner Data Center Agenda Builder to plan a visit to the IBM Booth or speaking slots. Click here to add IBM events to your Gartner Data Center calendar. Monday, 12/6, Lunchtime Session:

12/08 Wednesday Speaking Session:Time: 11:45am – 12:15pmRoom: Octavius 11Title: Univ of Pittsburgh Medical Center Maximizes Storage Efficiency with IBMSpeaker: Norm Protsman, IBM ProtecTIERAbstract: An integrated global healthcare enterprise provider headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., UPMC is one of the leading nonprofit healthcare systems in the U.S. -- having just been recognized for the 11th time as one of America’s Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report . Faced with exponential data growth and stringent backup and recovery requirements for healthcare records, UPMC deployed a total IBM solution that has enabled significant storage efficiencies in their Oracle environment while enabling them to decrease their dependency of tape for their on site backup & recovery requirements.

12/08 Wednesday Speaking Session:Time: 2:45pm - 3:15pmRoom: Octavius 7Title: Enabling 5x Storage Efficiency in your NAS StorageSpeaker: Steve Kenniston - Global Storage Efficiency Evangelist, IBM Systems &Technology GroupAbstract:Learn how IBM's Real-time Compression technology is the latest in the portfolio of storage efficiency technologies that help customers develop a more efficient storage infrastructure. By leveraging Real-time Compression customers can get up to 5x of their storage back to do more analytics to be more competitive while reducing their overall $/TB and develop a greener storage environment.

In case you miss a session, stop by IBM Booth Z for a demo, and a Starbucks coffee card when you get your conference badge scanned. See you in Las Vegas!

Join the IBM Systems & Technology Group at the Gartner Data Center Conference and learn how smarter computing strategies can help you gain insight, manage growth and leverage new technologies. The Gartner Data Center 29th Annual Event takes place at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, NV on December 6-9, 2010.

Visit the IBM Booth Z to see the latest in IBM systems and solutions. Take a tour of the Portable Modular Data Center; a turnkey data center built for any environment for remote, temporary, mobile and raised floor expansion solutions.

Please contact your IBM representative for more information and to arrange a meeting at the conference. We want to see our customers in Las Vegas at the show. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMSTG to get real-time conference updates!

The Agenda for the Technical Exchange Meeting includes these timely topics:

Extreme Processing: John Meyers, Executive IT Architect, will discuss how to replace legacy Sun Systems with Next Generation innovative Modular building blocks for processing and storage. IBM's Power 7 ™ and SONAS™ based solutions are exactly the right fit. IBM was the developer of the first Defense Intelligence Computer and the first disk drive. We know Extreme Processing. Let us demonstrate the best way to architect your next system and how to develop a scalable infrastructure.

Entity Resolution and Data Management: Imagine connecting billions of records across systems giving analysts the data needed to connect the dots regardless of organizational and geo-political boundary, consider insider threat, or tribal disambiguation problem space for example. Dave McQueeny will highlight the IBM capabilities that exist today that will allow organizations to find a particular needle in a stack of needles.

Advanced Real Time analytics: Dave McQueeny will outline how IBM has distinguished itself and is continuing to distinguish itself as the IT company that can help your organization make the jump from transactions to interactions, from perfecting your past to inventing your future, and from having to react to customers' changing needs to being able to anticipate and meet them. Cloud Computing: Dave McQueeny will highlight how using enterprise-caliber cloud integration for public, private and hybrid models can help you take advantage of IBM's cloud service delivery model without compromising security. See cloudburst automatic machine provisioning demonstration including workflow, scheduling, and deployment.

Stop by to meet your IBM Defense Intelligence Team and IBM Business Partners Brocade, Jeskell, Mainline Information Systems, and Sterling Computers. Come engage industry solution experts on industry best practices. Let IBM show you Intelligent Infrastructure and Technology Solutions for a Smarter Planet!

IBM has announced new offerings that dramatically improve storage
efficiency.

Storage requirements for organizations today are
growing up to 40% per year. Data centers today are being transformed and
challenged by this explosion of data, growing volume of transactions and
increasing concerns about security. A new set of technologies has emerged that
directly addresses storage efficiency challenges. Leveraging these five key
technologies - virtualization, thin provisioning, data deduplication,
compression, and automated tiering - is critical to mitigating storage
management challenges.

OFFER: A new IBM video will introduce these technologies and
show how you can:

What's smart about Storage?"One of the fundamental
tenets in IT is to move from complexity to simplicity. We have been able to
achieve that with the XIV system successfully."Clients
talk about their successes.

Check out the hero of the Universal animated hit, Despicable Me, Gru on the left. Gru is the villain of the film, seeking to commit despicable acts, and take over the world (I'm not telling you all the details, here.) I had to see the movie this week because my little niece wanted to see it for her birthday. Of course, the movie is a child's dream. It pokes fun at adults and features three very smart little girls who humanize the main character, Gru, with their winning combination of smarts and childhood innocence. My niece was completely charmed, as are movie goers all over the world. The film is a big box office success.

Watching the film, I had no idea that IBM was involved in the film's behind the scenes technology until I had a look at today's Information Week Magazine blog. Animated movies typically take a long time to complete, some several years. However, Despicable Me took far less time because it was built on a more efficient foundation, a "server farm." In case you haven't heard, a server farm is a collection of computer servers usually maintained by an enterprise to accomplish server needs far beyond the capability of one machine. Properly utilized, server farms can maximize the efficiency of the technology environment, while reducing the energy needed to power the IT environment.

"The traditional way of making these kinds of movies is in a big studio -- a "glass house" -- where the hundreds of people involved collaborate at the same site," says Ed Abrams, vice president of midmarket offerings at IBM. "As far as the technology, we're usually talking about huge, air-conditioned server rooms that take up a lot of room and consume a lot of energy." For this project, Serviware deployed a server farm that took up only four parking spots' worth of space and reduced power usage by about 40%. The VAR used IBM's iDataPlex systems, which Abrams says are noteworthy for their efficient design and flexible configuration. A Rear Door Heat eXchanger, a water-cooled door, eliminated the need for air conditioning.

The film's producer, Chris Meledandri was very pleased with how the IBM technology enabled collaboration from the the creative talent working on the film. "'Despicable Me' represents a breakthrough in the emerging model of
collaborative, geographically distributed digital movie making, which we
are proud to be building from the ground up. By seamlessly bringing
together creative talent from the U.S., France and other locations
around the world via technology, we completed a massive production
undertaking that is often left to larger single-location Hollywood
studios," said Chris Meledandri, Producer of "Despicable Me" and founder
of Illumination Entertainment. "Thanks to the capacity of IBM's
rendering technology and the skills of our artists, we were able to
bring our creative vision to life through the completion of a
wonderfully entertaining film and build the foundation for a large
pipeline of projects in development."

According to Information Week, the way in which the film was produced "is a shining example of what IBM and its technology partners are accomplishing under the Smarter Planet umbrella." IBM Business Partner and Value Added Reseller (VAR) Serviware helped 330 Universal employees and animators from all over the globe to collaborate from different locations to bring the film to children like my little niece. That's pretty cool, when you think about the energy being saved, and the laughter being brought to little kids everywhere. The movie was built in nine months, as opposed to the typical 3 to 5 years. Love that Smarter Systems technology for smarter animation!:)

IBM is announcing ground breaking storage solutions that make storage easier to manage and afford.

Your business information is multiplying rapidly. Managing this
information is becoming increasingly complex, and expensive.

This IBM announcement features the very latest in managing,
storing and retaining your data and how the IBM Storage Strategy will
help drive down the cost of storage acquisition, data retention, and
management.

Join us for an event to help you transform your storage
infrastructure, highlighting IBM solutions that deliver greater storage
efficiency.

Last week IBM made news by announcing innovative new storage systems that are optimized for workloads such as transaction processing and real-time analytics, reflecting the company's $6 billion annual investment in R&D.

Among the new products is a midrange disk storage system, called the IBM Storwize V7000, designed to efficiently and cost effectively manage the torrent of data flowing into companies so it can be swiftly delivered for such workloads as transaction processing -- like the growing volume of transactions completed from the Web and mobile and embedded devices. The new announcements include technologies that can eliminate the need to repeatedly make copies of the same data; scale-out storage technologies to support growth -- particularly of unstructured data like video and photos -- and high-performance workloads like cloud computing; and technologies to place the most critical data on fast, dynamic storage devices so it can be more quickly made available for workloads like analytics and mobile transaction processing. Examples include:

IBM System Storage Easy Tier software, which was invented by IBM Research and can improve performance by up to 200% (3). Easy Tier automatically moves the most active data (such as credit card transactions) to faster solid-state drives (SSDs) to prioritize and provide quick access to data for emerging workloads like analytics, while moving secondary data (less urgent data to be saved, for example, for regulatory requirements) to more cost-effective storage technologies;

The IBM ProtecTIER deduplication technology that IBM acquired in 2008 to help clients eliminate duplicate copies of data and significantly improve storage efficiency;

The IBM Real-time Compression Appliances -- technology that IBM acquired earlier this year to help clients reduce physical storage requirements by up to 80%, based on data from currently installed appliances (4);

The XIV high-end disk storage architecture that IBM acquired in 2008. XIV's architecture enables it to adapt to changing workloads and deliver consistent high performance;

IBM's Scale-out Network Attached Storage (SONAS), invented by IBM Research to support multiple petabytes of storage in a single file system. Clients can also use XIV and SONAS together to create a complete cloud storage solution; and

The IBM Information Archive, which combines tape and disk storage to deliver clients a tiered storage system that can protect data for long-term retention while helping optimize costs.

The IBM Storwize V7000 system further demonstrates that IBM is sharing its most innovative storage technologies across its portfolio. For example, the system includes a graphical user interface (GUI) modeled after the popular XIV user interface designed to significantly reduce system set up and administration; Easy Tier software; and industry-leading storage virtualization software that has been shown to double productivity (5).

IBM also introduced a range of other storage products, including:

IBM System Storage DS8800, which based on internal studies, can offer up to 40 percent faster performance than its predecessor, the IBM System Storage DS8700 (6). The DS8800 will next year support IBM Easy Tier.

Updated SAN Volume Controller software that includes Easy Tier, an improved administrator GUI and increased scalability as compared to the previous version of the technology;

IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center v4.2 software that has been enhanced for midrange systems; and

Implementation Services for Disk Systems - IBM Storwize V7000, using highly skilled storage specialists who will provide planning, implementation, configuration, testing and basic skills instruction. Using IBM services will enable clients to use in-house resources for higher priority business initiatives and can accelerate the return on investment in IBM storage technology.

"Organizations are struggling with the volume and evolving nature of the data they're already collecting. The IBM Storwize V7000 will deliver clients a new level of storage efficiency that can help them better store and secure their data," said Brian Truskowski, general manager of IBM storage. "IBM is combining home-grown storage innovations like our Easy Tier technology together with acquisitions of industry leading storage technologies such as XIV to deliver our clients a truly unmatched portfolio of storage solutions."

Did you know that some of Einstein's physics calculations are well over 20 pages long?
Modern researchers in the field of physics have long struggled with how to do complex calculations in less time. Now researchers at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Dartmouth report that they have been able to reduce the amount of time spent on physics calculations using IBM hardware. The UMass Dartmouth Physics department recently completed research proving POWER7 is 8x faster over Intel Xeon Harpertown and 5x over Intel Xeon Nehalem. Calculations that used to take a month to run now take less than a week. The resulting enhancements in time to perform calculations greatly speed the progress of their physics research on black holes. If only Einstein had a POWER7, just think what might have been?

Watch this video to listen to Dr. Gaurav Khanna tell the story of how IBM technology has increased the speed of his research.